I rarely have time over the weekend to just sit down and build for a day, so work on any kit is usually nonexistent save for a few moments before I crash out. This past weekend was no exception. The updates so far start from last week, and the past few week nights of work. Since i want the kit finished as soon as possible, I skipped out on the purple power soak and opted for a paper towel and some Mr Color Thinner and wiped all the parts. I plan on doing some extensive masking so hopefully the thinner wipe is enough to degrease the parts.

On skewers and ready for primer, all the parts were primed, and left to cure for a day. Hopefully I won’t get any paint lifts when get into painting and masking. I’ll probably take some masking tape and do some cursory tests.

After the previous night’s cleaning session and skewering to prepare the kit for the initial priming session. Last night, I primed everything but the chain. Now, along with the initial sanding session, there is an initial priming session. This implies that there will be additional sanding and priming sessions. For this update, I will show you some of the parts that were fixed during the initial sanding and clean up sessions. The hat, shoulder, and skirt areas where I found pinholes, bubbles, and other surface irregularities were addressed and fixed. These were areas that I could clearly see in the untouched white resin. However, once primed, the true number of surface defects is seen.

I started working on the kit a few weeks ago. Parts were glued and sanded. I skipped taking pictures of the test fit phase and a few other steps, I just didn’t have time. This is also the reason for this late of an update from when I first started working on the kit. This is the second kit of the series I’ve been commissioned to build. I’ve learned a good deal from the Evil kit and that should translate to a much higher quality build for this kit.

Once I get to this phase, updates will become more frequent and the light at the end of the tunnel is all the more present. For most of my builds, 80% of the build is surface preparation with the repetitive sanding, priming, and filling cycle. As of last night, this is what Kanu looks like:

Weekend update. This weekend saw a good amount of work done on Kanu. Friday was spent sanding, Saturday I re-primed the sanded pieces, then Sunday saw some actual paint work. The red parts got the base coat of Finisher’s Silk Red. The upper piece of the dress still had a good amount of surface defects that I filled using light curing putty on Friday. The part was primed on Saturday, and the base coat was sprayed on Sunday.

Putty, sand, prime, repeat. This is tedious because sanding as a process is tedious. Add in the need to fill seams, fill gaps, fill surface imperfections, sanding on top of that, then primer to check if the fixed areas are truly fixed, the process can repeat itself. And depending on how anal retentive you are, one can spend weeks on the process. Below is a comparison between the initially primed hair and the same part after work was done to clean it up, fix the seam between one of the small hair pieces that came separate; and filling some of the holes caused by the pinning session. There is a small amount of clean up, but the part in the second picture is a leap ahead of the first in terms of surface prep and readiness for paint.

It has been more than 2 full months since I last posted any sort of progress on projects I’m currently working on. With coming back from Otakon, and seeing how inspired my friend Brian is on his fairly new interest in model building; the feelings come back and I found myself sitting down at my work bench, sanding pad in one hand, and parts of Kanu in the other. Being on Skype with Brian is certainly helping the motivation as well. Via the webcam, I just got itching with watching him sit there and build. I put up my webcam on my work bench light and started filling and sanding. The below pictures were done in early July for my presentation at Anime Expo, but I hadn’t had the chance to make an update.